


The Crimson Sybil

by abrawmclaren



Series: The Language of the Sword [2]
Category: The Last Kingdom (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Animal Death, Blood Drinking, Multi, Patricide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:27:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21776776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abrawmclaren/pseuds/abrawmclaren
Summary: A girl of pale golden hair and eyes like the roiling sea is born of an oarsman and a Pict. From humble beginnings will come a gift; and with her gift she will foretell the legacies of kings and the might of warriors.
Series: The Language of the Sword [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1562788
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Skade is one of the most interesting antagonists in TLK, and I wanted to attempt an origin story for her. This one will have multiple short chapters, and the only story in this series to not contain dialogue. 
> 
> Vaettir are spirits in Norse mythology. The Spinners are three crones who live in the center of Midgard and weave the fates of mortals. I wanted to include as much spiritual mythos as I could in these stories, which I neglected to point out in notes preceding the writing of The Gift. Enjoy!

It is a clear day in midwinter, a blinding sun reflecting off the white of the driven snow piled high against the hall in Loidis, when the oarsman's daughter is born. Her mother is of the fire-haired Pictish tribes, the only place that's less forgiving than Denmark, but when the oarsman brought her to England she seemed to recognize the fertility of the land and the opportunity which presented itself alongside it.

And, nine months later, her own fertility mirrored the promise of verdant yields and enough grain to last a winter.

The oarsman had two sons by a previous wife, one he had acquired during a raid in Francia. The pox had claimed her, and in return for his love, she had given him two sons whose arms were filling out with rings more and more every year, and would soon have their own ships and go to make their own wealth. The oarsman was too old to raise a bairn, and but he was not too old to pull and fight for Earl Ragnar. And so it happened that a nursemaid was responsible for the raising of this winter daughter, and no one was any the wiser.

Her hair was the pale yellow of a summer eventide; her eyes like the unknowable depths of the seas the oarsman caressed as he sailed to distant shores. She knew all there was to know in the world at six winters it seemed, cocking her head to the side and watching, with some strange combination of awe and disinterest, as the women of Loidis sang and wove and made bannocks. The oarsman's midwinter daughter regarded every new experience with the curiosity of youth and the practice of a woman - and it was then that the oarsman knew, when he would come home from his raids, that his daughter was not like the other children. His daughter was as tempestuous as a rushing river, and as clever as any warlord.

Her father, then, was the first man to fear her.

The years tick by, and the midwinter daughter continues to grow. Ravn tells the oarsman that she has the eyes of a seer, which earns only a grunt of grudging acknowledgement from her father as Ravn cannot see himself. It is only on a Spring morning that he is set to sail away when he sees it - a pig, their only pig, its eyes lifeless onyx beads belly-up and slick with morning dew and dry, caked black blood. Skade's skirts are hiked to her bony knees; she's braw and bonney like her Pict mother, but in the mud she intently traces sigils around the dead animal with none of the grace of a woman and all the mystery of a vaettir. The oarsman watches her, as if the only beings in the world were this pig and this mud and this girl, and in her eyes there is something adjacent to malice but also the contented knowing of a sorceress. She is thirteen winters then, and she knows what she is. The oarsman does too, and when he throws the heavy weight of the dead beast over his shoulder, he both lauds and hates the gods for this gift his winter daughter possesses.

It earns her, among other things, a beating and no meat for three days. When he goes viking again in a fortnight, Ravn keeps Skade in his charge. The oarsman knows that she will not be there when he returns, and so he casts what remains of his love and his hope out to the sea, and commends it to the Spinners to decide.

The oarsman returns after slaughtering holy men and pissing on their crosses (the ones that weren't gilded) three months later, when Midgard begins to cool and there is a telltale bite hanging in the air. His chest is upturned, all of his silver and arm rings are gone, and so is Skade.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skade is found by Skorpa, whose wife takes her as a pupil and teaches her the secrets of seidr. 
> 
> She discovers on her own how her power manifests, and Skorpa is the first warlord to win and lose her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Told in first person from Skade's POV. A sketch of how she begins to understand the ways her own power manifests.
> 
> Buckle up.

Ravn had told me, that doddering old man, that he could still see even though we all knew he was blind as the day is long. I pitied him, but respected his position as Earl Ragnar's father; and so I honored his belief that I held magic within me. In truth I had felt this for my whole life, unwilling to play the childish games with sticks and stones and makeshift fortresses in the hills, no more than a few branches thatched to the trunks of trees. I found it foolish then, to concern myself with their make believe. Not when I could see - and Ravn said that's what I could do, to see, and so I killed my father's pig and I saw through his eyes and divested him of his life of wallowing in mud as an offering to Thor for my gratitude in this gift the gods saw fit to bestow upon me.

When the men left, I stole my father's mare and rode hard to Northumbria, whereupon I became ill. Sun sickness, I was told, for by then the snow had begun to fall and my face blistered when I rode, and my mouth became dry and my lips were cracked like the Roman facades I saw dotting the landscape. I came to an inn, isolated with no village and meant for far less discerning men, and there I gave of my body for a bite of stew and a small cup of ale. The straw on which I slept smelled like stale swill and piss, but I was ill and bleeding from where the man took my body in exchange for food and drink. I bled and was tormented with fever, but when I awoke I was no longer laying on straw but in a bed.

"You" the dulcet voice called to me. "Wake. I would know who you are, and how you came to be here in my hall."

My eyes were weighted down with illness and exhaustion, but I propped myself up on one elbow, shakily, and answered in the clearest way I could. "I am Skade of Loidis. I ran from my father. I do not wish to return."

The large man sitting above and no more than ten paces from me shifted in the wooden chair which protested but held his weight. He was draped in furs, his leather armor crinkling with the slightest movement. His lips were haloed in red blood; his hair was long and matted, curled, but in his eyes I saw I had nothing to fear from this man.

"Did he beat you? Rape you?" His timbre was agreeable; he was merely asking. A fair question, I thought, to ask of a girl of thirteen winters.

"He beat me because it was no more than I deserved. I killed his pig so that I could see through its eyes."

The large man laughs, though it is entirely without mirth. "You wished to see through the eyes of a beast?"

"I was told I could see. I wanted to try it for myself."

"And did you see?"

"Yes. Which is why I killed it."

For a long time, the large man watches me, blankly, and I cannot tell what he is thinking but somehow I know that I have said something important. He reaches over, produces an apple and a hunk of stale bread, and throws both toward me. I grasp them both, too eagerly, but my hunger is overwhelming. He watches, but says nothing.

"I am Skorpa of the White Horse. Surely a name known to your tribe."

I swallow a too-ambitious bite of bread. "Your name is not unknown to me, my lord."

This elicits a reaction, the warlord's eyebrow shooting upward. "And now I am your lord as well as your captor?"

"I did not know I was imprisoned."

Skorpa laughs again, this time with some measure of warmth. "Indeed. You are a Dane, yes?"

"My father. My mother was his Pict whore."

"Then you are of two fearsome tribes, and welcome twofold. I will not inform Earl Ragnar of your disappearance. But you are a thief, if not one with the makings of a sorceress. After your ear is nailed to the pillory, I will consider presenting you to my wife as a gift. As a student."

I spit, the fire of anger rising in my belly as the last vestiges of sickness are replaced by hatred. "I stole my father's mare to escape his simplicity. I did not steal with the intent to harm."

Skorpa rises from his chair to his full height. I remain undaunted, but it is clear now that this is not a man with whom to trifle. Somehow, this excites me all the more, though I do not know why.

"Get up" he spits, and in between his teeth is pink blood. I can smell the tang of it in the air, and I am drawn to this man in a way I cannot describe. I _want_ to obey him; but I tarry a beat too long and he drags me out of the shack and into the harsh light of morning by my hair.

"Rorik" he bellows "nail this whore's ear to the pillory and hold her fast for one hour. She can tear herself away only when the sun has risen entirely."

"Yes, Earl Skorpa." The man then takes me as Skorpa walks away, as if he had completed a simple task like pissing instead of hauling a child out to a pillory.

The man called Rorik has stinking breath and rotted teeth, and he grasps my chest as he removes an ax from his belt, raises the nail, and pounds it through my flesh. I cry out, but no tears are shed, and I take pride in this.

I lose consciousness after a while, and when I wake, it is Rorik hovering above me and taunting me, jarring me into awareness.

"Free yourself, thief, and you can go to the hall to meet Seiglinde. She is your lord's woman, and you will respect her."

He stalks off, leaving me to steel myself. I consider freeing myself and then leaving this place, although without my mare I cannot put the needed distance between myself and this town. I am also still unwell, and my new lord is accommodating if not rigid.

I do cry when the flesh of my ear tears and hangs limply on the pillory. I blot at the blood with my sleeve, and wipe my nose, and that's when I taste it. My own blood.

I suck it from my fingers, standing on the platform, holding my skirts with one hand as I lap at the fingers of the other. Rorik watches with a mixture of concern and something else I don't understand - perhaps the same kind of desire as the man at the inn - and I follow the stinking warrior to the hall.

Rorik presents me to Skorpa and Seiglinde, who are seated at the head table. Seiglinde has hair the color of wheat and wears leathers like a man, and a sword strapped to her hip - but she is still comely, the curve of her body feminine and strong.

"Are you a valkyrie?" I ask, and she smiles.

"No, child. I am a shield-maiden, but I hear tell that you have a gift."

"I can see" I say proudly. This does not faze Seiglinde.

"What do you see?"

I take a deep breath, and the smell of roasting meat suddenly reminds me of my empty stomach. It turns painfully, but I focus on the lady - and the warlord - before me.

"I see paths. All kinds. Past and present."

Seiglinde sits back, trading a sideways glance with Skorpa. "You are to be a sorceress, it seems. Do you know the runes?"

"Some. Ravn - the seer from Loidis - taught me what he knew."

The shield-maiden nods. "I will teach you, but you must pledge fealty to Skorpa and to myself. You will be given food, ale, shelter, and knowledge. In return, you will abandon all the pleasures of Midgard to become an instrument of the Spinners. Do you understand, child?"

I would have agreed to be pupped by every man in this gods-forsaken village for a taste of the food by which I was surrounded; that, and I did wish to learn.

"Yes."

"Good" Seiglinde replies, clapping her hands together. "Then we shall toast to your sight and your future predictions of glory and wealth for your new lord."

I accept her terms, and I eat. When I sleep that night, I dream of kings and warriors, and I dream of all their fates and all their futures and pasts.


End file.
